Melting in Miami

My antipathy towards – and occasional flirtation with – Florida is well documented on this blog.

It’s the site of all my worst sunburns. All my itchiest bug bites. Many of my most troubling bouts of ennui.

And yet, though I’ve never in my life uttered the words, “Let’s book a trip to Florida,” I continue to find myself here. For work. For writer’s retreats. To catch a cruise ship to the Caribbean. Usually I’m there without my husband Emmett, and thus end up on the phone with him, complaining about things like ‘too much summer’ while I sip cafe con leche and curse the climate-inappropriate clothes I came with. But this time, he joined me.

We spent four days in Miami – a quick trip while my mom watched the kids back in New York – and I went in unusually hopeful. I’m now a woman who uses a weather app! Who weathers high-SPF sunscreen! Who knows better than to project all her hopes and dreams onto a destination and then wind up disappointed!

So did all that pre-planning and expectation-managing work? Sort of! Here’s what went right:

I ate one of the best meals I’ve had all year at Tam Tam, a “Vietnamese drinking food” spot so lively and delicious that it more that compensated for its location along a particularly charmless stretch of Downtown Miami. Get the scallop crudo and lotus root salad!

We spent the afternoon wandering Wynwood and the highlight was a 3pm strawberry concha at Zak the Baker followed by a dinner reservation at Uchi, a perennially-popular Japanese spot smack dab in the middle of the neighborhood’s restaurant row.

The next day, Emmett and I booked one of the daybeds on the rooftop of Mayfair House, a Gaudi-inspired hotel in Coconut Grove that was recently restored to its mid-80s heyday. I wore an obnoxious nothing-quiet-luxury-about-it bucket hat, read Lena Dunham’s Famesick, and ordered every over-the-top mocktail on the menu.

In the design district, Emmett and I had a great time at the Institute of Contemporary Art– I connected with Manoucher Yektai’s work in a way I rarely do given my signature ‘rush through the museum to get to the gift shop’ style. And while I did not expect to watch scenes from Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers in an art museum, I’m not mad about it.

Finally, Emmett bonded deeply with our hotel, where he swam so many laps in the absolutely giant pool that he swears he got Phelps-level ripped in the span of several days.

We still had our fair of strike outs – a few so-so meals, a bookstore pilgrimage to Books & Books that was just … fine (Miami is decidedly NOT a bookstore town), and a sojourn to South Beach of which I remember little apart from the unyielding heat.

But next time I’m back in the sunshine state (it’s inevitable!), at least I know Miami’s a safe bet.